December 14, 2017

Something is wrong with GOP effort to recall three Democratic state senators

I have lived in Las Vegas for more than 32 years, but I can’t remember any recall petitions or elections. So now that three of our state senators have been targeted, I had to do some research. I decided to focus on state Sen. Joyce Woodhouse, D-Henderson, because I know her and live near her. This is what I found:

All three female senators were selected for recall by the Republican Party because they won their races by narrow margins. In Ms. Woodhouse’s case, she beat Carrie Buck last November by fewer than 500 votes and by less than 1 percentage point. Ms. Buck got 25,739 votes in the general election.

When you do the math, the state constitution in this case requires Republicans and their paid door-to-door walkers to gather 14,412 recall signatures. These signatures must come from from folks who voted in November and who live in Senate District 5. But these residents could have just checked the box in their congressional race and walked out the door; they are not required to have voted in their state Senate contest.

The bottom line is this: The Republicans don’t need to talk to anyone except friends of Carrie Buck. If 14,412 of her 25,739 voters still like her, the recall is on and the taxpayers are stuck with a tab of at least $50,000.